


watch how a cold broken teen will desperately lean on a superglued human of proof

by PrinceDrew



Category: Dear Evan Hansen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Comfort, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, amazingly enough it's evan, can be read either shippy or not, let me know if you want anything else tagging, mention of treebros?, teen for swearing, you'll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 11:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14043387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceDrew/pseuds/PrinceDrew
Summary: It started with Connor Murphy, Evan’s soulmate, swallowing a handful of pills in the park, and dying.The Murphy family is very understanding, for the situation, Jared supposes. They don’t quite seem to realise that Connor and Evan were strangers at best, but they say that Evan is very welcome to visit them at any time. For dinner, of course.Still. In a culture as saturated with soulmates as theirs, it’s still a shock when yours dies before you know them. They keep Evan in hospital, under observation, because they know people can die of that broken heart syndrome in situations like these. When one soulmate goes, so does the other.





	watch how a cold broken teen will desperately lean on a superglued human of proof

**Author's Note:**

> So, this started life as a drabble writing inbox thing over on tumblr, it turned out to be long enough for here, so that's where we are right now. You can find the original [here](http://princedrewwrites.tumblr.com/post/172072097121)
> 
> Title is from dodie's Sick of Losing Soulmates.

It started with a phone call.

It started with Evan calling Jared. It started with screaming down the phone, it started with _“Jar - Jared, I can’t breathe, Jared, fu - fuck, Jared, I - I can’t move, Jared I think I’m dying, Jared, please, I need the hospital.”_ It started at 1 AM.

It started with Evan’s soul mark bloody and scarring. In the hospital, waiting, assuring Heidi that everything was okay through texts, looking up and seeing Zoe Murphy and her parents, her face pale and vacant, still in pyjamas, tucked up, curled up into a ball on an uncomfortable plastic chair. The doctor telling Jared that Evan was fine. Was going to be fine. That his reaction was usual when a soulmate died.

It started with Connor Murphy, Evan’s soulmate, swallowing a handful of pills in the park, and dying.

The Murphy family is very understanding, for the situation, Jared supposes. They don’t quite seem to realise that Connor and Evan were strangers at best, but they say that Evan is very welcome to visit them at any time. For dinner, of course.

Still. In a culture as saturated with soulmates as theirs, it’s still a shock when yours dies before you know them. They keep Evan in hospital, under observation, because they know people can die of that broken heart syndrome in situations like these. When one soulmate goes, so does the other. Domino effect. Trees falling against each other.

Evan doesn’t die. Evan also doesn’t return to school when they release him three days later, so Jared visits him that evening, his mother’s chicken pot pie and famous cherry cake tucked under his arm. He smiles at Heidi, on her way to night school, and makes his own way to Evan’s room, leaving the food on the kitchen table.

He isn’t quite sure what he was expecting. The lights are off, so he switches them on as he steps inside, knowing the curtains would be better, really. The room is no different from how it normally is. Evan is a lump in the duvets, face hidden, statue-still.

“Hey Evan,” he greets, and there’s a stirring, and Evan emerges, sickly-coloured and washed out, blinking like he hadn’t opened his eyes for a while. He sits up, without talking, and he’s wearing nothing but boxers and an old white t-shirt, but he still doesn’t talk.

There’s a bandage on his right wrist where his soul mark was, parallel to his cast. Jared can’t shake the feeling that it looks the same as it would if Evan had tried to - wanted to -

Like Connor Murphy had, in junior year.

“I came by to see how you’re doing,” he announces to the room, walking and sitting beside Evan. “Uh, there’s food on the table - Mom made her cherry cake for you, and there’s pie.”

“‘M not hungry,” Evan replies, and his gaze is on a box by his bed that Jared knows wasn’t there the last time he visited.

A response is good. The refusal of food is not. Evan had this weird thing against eating in public, Jared knows, and he probably didn’t eat as much in the hospital as he should have done.

But he can’t force food down Evan’s throat. So he just nods, and sits beside Evan on the bed, almost touching him but not quite, twisting his hand around his own wrist, again and again.

Jared is Markless. That has been a fact of life for as long as he can remember. The universe didn’t bother to make him another half, and his mother says that means he’s complete as he is, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt when he was younger, when the only other Markless people he knew were Evan’s parents, and most of his time was spent looking around and finding nothing but stories about soulmates, or people who thought they were Markless but weren’t.

So he gets it. In a way. He’s mourned the fact himself, for a long, long time, and he’s not entirely sure if he is completely over it himself, but.  
He gets it. He thinks.

“I have an extra therapy session tomorrow,” he overhears Evan mumble, and all he can really process at that moment is _‘extra’_. “So I’m. I’m not going to be in. The morning. Afternoon, maybe.”

The maybe is a no.

“I’ll grab homework for you,” Jared promises. “I picked it up, the last few days, but it’s all at home. Figured you didn’t want it, you know, right now.”

Evan’s gaze is still on the box.

“I mean, you dodged a bullet, really,” he finds himself saying. “Having Connor Murphy as your soulmate -”

“God, you don’t fucking _get_ it, do you?!” Evan bursts, like a dying sun, a supernova, but his voice is scratchy, ill, wrong for him. “You just - can’t understand -”

Jared blinks. What else can he do?

“I -”

“No, you don’t get to say that. You don’t get to say I dodged a bullet when my soulmate is dead and I didn’t even know him and you don’t even have one -”

And then something changes in Evan, and he crumples, breaks, collapses forward, into his hands, hiding his face. There is a moment, two, where all Evan does is shake, and all Jared does is watch.

“He was meant to love me,” Evan whispers, like it’s the best-kept secret in the world. “He - he was meant to love me, he was the one the universe thought best fit me but - but when he pushed me over that morning, and my mark glowed, all I saw was this - this _fear_ in his eyes, like he was scared and - and -”

“You didn’t push Connor Murphy to kill himself,” Jared tells him, softly, because he knows that’s where his mind is going. “Evan? You hear me? Connor Murphy didn’t kill himself because you’re his soulmate.”

“But what if he did?” Evan asks, his voice cracking, and he’s staring, staring at Jared, tears brimming in his eyes. “He - he was - my - he was going to love me. He was going to love _me_.” Jared is not a therapist. Jared is shit at comforting people. Jared is not good to Evan, hasn’t been for years.

But he still knows when Evan needs a hug.

“Come here,” he says, opening his arms, and Evan falls into them, twisting the material of Jared’s shirt tight in his hands, sobbing, and Jared just holds him, for a moment.

“Oh Evan,” Jared murmurs, pulling him in tight. “We’re as fucked up each other, yeah? You’ll get through this. You’ve made it through worse.”

Evan whimpers, and he curls into Jared, head buried in his shoulder, tears rolling down his cheeks, and then they stay like that, just Jared clutching Evan tight, secure, grounding him, until Evan’s sobs lessen, and he raises his head, blinking at Jared, shaking, shaking all the while.

“Stay with me,” Evan whispers at last. “For tonight. Please.”

Jared gazes at him for a moment, before he nods, smiling for Evan.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> I swear, one of these days, I'll write something happy.
> 
> I hope you've enjoyed this fic! If you have any questions, liked the fic, have feedback or noticed any mistakes, post in the comments below, or at my tumblr [here](http://princedrewwrites.tumblr.com). I'm getting better at using it, I swear! Or, if you just liked the fic and don't want to say anything, just leave a kudos. There's no pressure either way.


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